Are you ready for the next generation of Microsoft Office?

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Microsoft today released a customer preview of the next generation of Microsoft Office, which is optimized for both touchscreens and traditional desktops. While the new features of Office are definitely tailored to Windows 8, the suite will work on both Windows 8 and Windows 7. You can test it out now by going to the Office Customer Preview link. (Caution: download and installation is a bit slow.)

With Windows 8 hitting RTM (release to manufacturing) next month, Microsoft provided its first in-depth look at the next version of Office today. Microsoft has promised "touch everywhere," stylus control, and of course traditional keyboard and mouse input. In addition to the traditional suite, ARM-based Windows 8 devices will include Office Home and Student 2013 RT, containing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote (but not Outlook).

Ars has been testing Office's pre-release versions, and we already have extensive articles detailing the features of Outlook, Word, Excel, and OneNote.

I just updated from Office 97 to Office 2010 last year. Has it been another 14 years yet, or is there some amazing new feature that would make me want to upgrade again?

Note: for what I do with it, basic spreadsheet and text editing, there was nothing dramatically new for me changing from 97. The right click cell editing without going to the menu or ribbon is nice, but not dramatic. My point is that office software reached a plateau for most users a long time ago. My main reason for updating was compatibility with Windows 7, not that I needed new features.